One cannot but welcome a Bill which provides relief, however restricted or penny pinching one might think it to be, for a certain section of the ratepaying community. However, many of us feel that we are doing little more in discussing this Bill than processing a legacy of the recent general election campaign. This is the much lauded, much vaunted, much spoken about rates relief measure that we heard so much about before the general election. At that time the Bill itself had not been published and many of us and indeed many members of the general public certainly expected a far wider ranging Bill than we have before us today. However, in so far as it does provide relief for even some sections of the community and provides for the payment legally by instalment of the rates one must welcome it, with certain reservations.
It seems to me that the Minister has put the onus and the burden of compiling the scheme upon the local authorities and in this regard he has once again abdicated from his responsibilities in so far as the members of the local authorities are the ones who will have to decide who is eligible and who is not. The Minister was at great pains when speaking on the Bill in the Dáil to point out that this is a reserved function of the members of local authorities. What he did not bring out so forcibly or remind the Members of so often was that the scheme as prepared by any local authority would only be a draft scheme until such time as it receives his sanction.
To my mind we are, in looking at this Bill and reviewing it, seeing yet again another example of the Government's concept of social justice. What has been given here seems to me to have been given with the hand of grudging charity and indeed in rather a Machiavellian way even in the granting of it to ensure that somebody else rather than the National Exchequer is the one who pays the piper. We must remember that it does not matter how many groups may be relieved in the implementation of this scheme the cost of providing that relief will fall upon the remaining members of the rate-paying community in that local authority area. The cost will not be, as far as we can estimate, in any local authority area a very considerable one. In fact in certain areas it would be true to say it will be almost negligible.
Nonetheless, it seems to me rather unfair that at a time when representative organisations and communities throughout the country are complaining about the intolerable burden of the rates demand, we should have a Bill coming before this House which through its very specific wording places yet another cost and charge on certain sections of the ratepayers. In so far as this applies and there can be no effort made or agreement to meet even part of the cost from central funds, one must view the whole move with quite a deal of misgiving.
There is also the anomaly which arises that it will be open to each local authority either to accept or to opt out of this scheme. Consequently, we are quite likely to have a situation where if we may take as an example the two local authority areas of Dublin city and Dublin county, as Members will know the boundary line between these two areas is very often an arbitrary one running down the centre of a suburban road. Let us take as an example a contributory widow living on the county side of the boundary line and a contributory widow living right opposite on the city side. As far as I know the contributory widow in County Dublin will be entitled to apply for and to receive waiver of rates either in whole or in part and unless the Minister's Commissioner in Dublin Corporation has amended the suggested scheme that we in the county provide for contributory widows, the contributory widow on the city side will receive no relief whatsoever.
This seems to me to be a bad provision of the Bill in so far as there is no uniformity throughout the country. In yet another area, and indeed this has already happened in many areas throughout the country, local authorities have opted out of the scheme completely because of the fact that the cost will devolve upon the rest of the rate-paying community so that we will have all the social assistance classes in those counties paying the rates as before while their counterparts or perhaps even people who are better off but in a different local administrative area will have their rates relieved. This hardly seems to me to be a fair provision or indeed to be a justification of the much heard of claim of the Government to cherish all the children of the nation equally.
I was interested to hear the Parliamentary Secretary refer to the feasibility study on the problem of rates. This is the third or perhaps the fourth such study that has been prepared on this whole problem but the only action we have seen to come out of it is this unnecessarily small and restricted measure. I understand that this is an enabling Bill and consequently we cannot propose any amendment which would put the cost of the provision on to the national Exchequer and as such there is not much point in speaking about it much further.
If I could I should like to refer to the provisions of the scheme in County Dublin. The estimated cost of this scheme in County Dublin within this financial year, and I give this as an example, will be £4,500. On investigation I discover that already it had been estimated that the amount of rates which will be waived by the County Manager will amount to £2,500. In the remainder of the estimate provision has to be made for the provisional cost of running this scheme which obviously will be quite high in so far as inquiring officers and inspectors will have to be sent out from the local authority to investigate the circumstances of each applicant, and it seems to me that this Bill does not go very far beyond the powers given to county managers in the Special Powers Order of 1946. However, in so far as they are most specific, and many persons may apply for relief of rates at the beginning of the year, it will relieve them of the hardship of this running battle with the rate collector during the year and waiting until the end of the year before relief can be obtained.
This is a welcome thing but it does not seem to me as if it will provide very great relief for any other section other than the people who would in any way obtain such relief from the county manager. I would be interested to hear from the Parliamentary Secretary how he envisages the local authority ensuring, in the case of tenants living in dwellings controlled by the 1928 Act, where they are in a property with a valuation under a certain figure which qualifies them for rates relief or in making an application to the local authority for such relief and that relief being granted—they are already little more than the occupier of a tenancy—that the relief will pass on to the tenant occupier rather than to the owner of the property in question.
This is an important point in circumstances where very easily we could find we were giving relief to owners of property who did not at all merit such relief and that the occupier was not obtaining the relief as he was before.
While I am on this topic I should also like to inquire from the Parliamentary Secretary what the position will be regarding tenants of local authority houses who would presumably be on differential rents. As many Members of the House, who are also members of local authorities, will know, the differential rent is fixed for those tenants according to their income or profit over a period and if this income drops then the rent drops accordingly. However, what about the rent charged by local authorities, which is actually a figure which provides for rates. Can we take it when a tenant on differential rent applies to have his rent reduced, because of straitened financial circumstances, the local authority will automatically take that as being an application for waiving or part waiving of the rates in question, or will the ratepayer have to become aware himself that such a scheme exists and go and seek an application form, fill it out and make this application? It seems to me these two things could very well be done in conjunction with each other.
I should like to refer again to this onus which now falls on the members of local authorities of deciding who will or who will not be eligible to participate in this scheme. It seems to me that if at some time in the future criticism is levelled at this scheme in general, or as it operates in certain areas, the Minister of the day, whoever he may be, can very easily turn and, washing his hands of the matter, say: "I was not the one to counsel this scheme. It was provided by members of your own local authority. Go and argue with them". It seems to me that the Minister has left members of local authorities in rather an invidious position much as he does now in regard to the differential rent scheme because it is up to them to decide who is eligible but they do not know how far they may go in including various categories because they do not know if the Minister will sanction those categories which were not actually in the circular which recently emanated from his Department.
I should like to refer to a situation which I can see developing and I understand it applies in most counties. A person in receipt of home assistance may apply for a full waiver of his rates and be suitable but, as many Members know, those on home assistance are very often in receipt of this benefit only for a short time. It could happen that a man would be in receipt of home assistance for perhaps the months of April and May and apply for and receive a waiver of rates. In June of that year he might once again obtain very lucrative employment and so far as the remaining ten months of the financial year are concerned he might derive an income which would be far in excess of many other categories who have to continue to pay their rate demand notices. I wonder what provision, if any, has been envisaged to counteract this sort of thing happening.
I notice the Bill provides for the Minister to make regulations under the Act. I do not know whether it is a very unusual request to make but it might be useful to the House if the Parliamentary Secretary could give us an outline draft of such regulations or let us know what he envisages might be included in those regulations. In subsection (6) of section 2 we are told:
A decision by a rating authority as to whether or not a person is qualified for relief under a scheme under this section shall be final and conclusive.
I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether this means that the rating authority in question would be the members of the local authority or whether a decision on an individual application would be made by the county manager. It seems to me that a situation could very easily arise where a person who feels he is eligible for benefit and is not getting much joy from the officials with his application might be placed in the situation we had some years ago of having to lobby each and every member of the local authority to vote to have his application accepted. It seems to me that we are continuing the application of the Victorian Poor Law system and reverting to a situation such as this and it would, I think, be far preferable if the scheme were clear cut and that the decision made would be made by the county manager rather than by a vote by members of the local authority generally.
Coming to the section which deals with payment of rates by instalments, as many members know, informal ad hoc arrangements have obtained in quite a number of local authorities for many years past whereby ratepayers could pay from time to time such money as they could afford and in that way meet their rate demand notices. To the best of my recollection there was a legal case in this regard some years ago when a man offered part payment of rates which was refused by the rate collector, who subsequently brought him to court for failure to pay the full amount. The case was dismissed and I understand since that time local authorities have been wary of refusing any offer of money.
I welcome unreservedly the section which provides for equal instalments over a 10- or 11-month period. My only apprehension about it is that a rate collector might feel bound once this Bill becomes law to accept only these equal instalments, whichever they might be, whether one-tenth or one-eleventh, and if somebody offered, say, one-twentieth he might feel no longer entitled to accept this smaller amount. If this were to happen I feel this would not be a progressive move. I do not envisage this would, in fact, happen, but perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary might clarify the situation.
There is a fear in the minds of many rate collectors throughout the country that this move will mean that much extra work will devolve on their shoulders without any provision for additional payment, and what is more important in their view, without any increase in the expenses allocated to them for the collection of their rate books. Again, perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would clarify this position.
In many official circles it has for a long time been felt that under the Public Bodies Order, 1946, power already existed for the making of a scheme for payment of rates by instalments. However, I understand that certain legal people felt this might not be valid in a court of law and I presume this to some extent is the reason we are getting these specific provisions in the later sections of this Bill.
Referring briefly to the last section, which is a minor one, it provides when the Bill is passed that it will be retrospective to 1st April, 1969. This is a rather interesting section coming from this particular Department and, if I might crave the indulgence of the Chair, I will refer to the view of the Department on another matter regarding the introduction of retrospective legislation to control development which was granted prior to the appointed day for the 1963 Planning Act. I understand the Minister always held the view that he could not introduce legislation to control developers because of the fact that this would be retrospective legislation and consequently would be bad.
Here we have a clearcut example of retrospective legislation in this section and I presume this would indicate that the views of the Department have now changed and that the Department of Local Government may shortly be preparing a retrospective Bill bringing these people under effective control. I certainly hope so.
In general one would welcome this Bill in so far as it provides these measures of relief. One would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to consider introducing a Bill at as early a date as possible which would transfer the cost of financing the local authorities from the ratepayers to central funds.
In conclusion I would point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that, as I suggested, this Bill is a legacy of the general election and is a great disappointment to the many people who cast their votes on the promises they were made. However, even at this stage before the Bill becomes law, in several parts of the country the hatchet men of the Government Party are contacting various groups, especially widows —I have had examples of this recently —asking them if they had applied for a waiver of rates. When told they had not, either because they did not know about the scheme or because they felt they would not qualify, they were told to fill up the forms immediately and that their local Fianna Fáil Deputy would ensure that once the Bill passed through both Houses he would secure a complete waiver for them.
If this is the kind of action we are to get as a result of such a penny-pinching, miserly measure as this Bill, one wonders what might happen if the Bill were more far-reaching in its scope and provision. I can only hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will take steps to see that more guidance is given to the local authorities in the matter of the various groups who may or may not be included in this scheme, and indeed if I might suggest that far more guidance is given to the representatives of his own Party in their proposed abuse of this Bill.